


Anna will be Orpheus

by legalgood



Category: Mabel (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Orpheus and Eurydice (Hellenistic Religion & Lore) Fusion, F/F, a lil bit based on hadestown but more based on the mythology, mythology AU, transcript style
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 13:20:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18283112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/legalgood/pseuds/legalgood
Summary: Only sometimes is Anna Theseus, and only sometimes the thread. But always, I think, she is Orpheus. When she was down there, down in my place, they made her sing and god, god, Anna I could hear each word—





	Anna will be Orpheus

**Author's Note:**

> I got a chance to see Hadestown and had to write this immediately!

MABEL: One day, Anna will be Orpheus, and the story is going to change. _We_ both know the King can never lie. _He_ , at least, will keep his promises.

ANNA: And Veratrine our Mercury, poisonous as she is?

MABEL: [LAUGHS] Maybe. Or maybe it is the house that leads you down into the depths of me, and Veratrine is the King. She’d never let us go, though. And she would tempt me more with staying, let me hold her leash even as she caged me.  Only sometimes is Anna Theseus, and only sometimes the thread. But always, I think, she is Orpheus. When she was down there, down in my place, they made her sing and god, god, Anna I could hear each word—

 

**[BEEP]**  

 

MABEL: —won’t let you keep her! I won’t! [SHE BANGS REPEATEDLY ON THE WALL OF THE HOUSE] I won’t! I won’t! I’m going to get her _out_ , damn you, let me in, I’m not going to leave her there!

[HOUSE NOISES, SOME SHIFTING, BUT NOT ENOUGH] 

I know I’m not Anna, I know I can’t be _god_ , but you’re my goddamn house! I’ll bring out the matches again, or, or, Anna said something about a hatchet, I can get that too, I can burn to death another part of you just let me get _back_ there.

What do you want? What will make you split like a rotten fruit and let me get back to her? I’ve given piece upon piece of myself to you, to the gorging, rancid physicality of whatever-you-are, there is nothing left that wouldn’t be. Re-gifting.

[HOUSE NOISES. FAINTLY, SOMEBODY SAYS “I’m going into the ground for you,” AND THEN, ANNA’S VOICE ON HER ANSWERING MACHINE, “Anna Limon”]

You don’t have to make me say it, you have enough of me to keep me here regardless.

[HOUSE ROARS INSISTANTLY]

Fine! Fine! I promise I’ll come back, _with_ Anna. Is that enough for you? Is that e-fucking-nough?

[HOUSE NOISES GROWING LOUDER, BUILDING TO A RENDING SOUND]

 

**[BEEP]**

 

[SINGING, IT SOUNDS LIKE ANNA’S VOICE BUT IT IS LAYERED AND ECHOING]

 

**[BEEP]**

 

MABEL: I’ve come to get her back.

THE KING: [LAUGHS]

MABEL: [YOU CAN HEAR THE SCOWL IN HER VOICE] Yeah, yeah, I’d _love_ to stay down here, exchange myself for her and whatnot, but we’ve done that one to death, don’t you think? Besides. I made a promise. You know what that means.

LUNA: There must be ritual, bird-who-would-be-King. A hearing, a challenge, a test. You are no fit challenge for the throne, Mabel Martin. You would not need to challenge, you would only have to wait. You know you were his—

 

**[BEEP]**

 

ANNA: Mabel! _Mabel!_ What are you doing to her, no, _no_ , _Mabel_ , _stop, stop, don’t you touch her all you goddamn twig—_

 

**[BEEP]**

 

MABEL: Perhaps she isn’t Orpehus. Not all of the time. Tragic poet is far from the most unfair descriptor of me. It covers some of the basics: verbose and melancholy. Melodramatic, at least.

Her singing is prettier than mine, though, her voice sweet like silvered well-water. They must have liked that. She could have sung me home, if we were facing Pluto and Persephone.

They say that spring is soft shoots, and winter hard coal and diamond. I say spring is a river that shatters the ice, that rends the rock with its teeth. It etches diamonds into the shapes she chooses. We were dead and not, under the hill. Bartering for lives we had given each other, and I wasn’t anything good, wasn’t anything sweet or melodious or moving.

All that I had, my venomous tongue, the snake of my self, looping around and around in a circle. Never knowing when to quit.

 

**[BEEP]**

 

MABEL: [RAGGED, OUT OF BREATH] Was that the hearing? I’m not here for the throne, not yet at least. I’ll lay no challenge down.

I can’t be dead, down here. Nothing can be dead. There’s too much growing in the ground itself. I can be _gone_ , of course, you can do that, but you won’t, because it wouldn’t be a test. There are other reasons, too, I—I know.

I’m not leaving without her. I will _not_ be parted from her, and I have promises to keep. It will come down here after me, after _her_. It’s her house, after all. You can let us go or, let it return the favor of invading.

You need a test? Fine, give me a test! Whatever it is, I’ll do it. I will _not_ let you keep her.

THE KING: Look not at her until you leave this place, and she will go with you. Look back, and here she stays.

MABEL: Promise me.

THE KING: I promise that it will be so.

[THERE IS THE SOUND OF SHACKLES COMING UNDONE]

[AS HE SPEAKS, STARTS GLITCHING AND ROARING]

Go, and trust that she will—

 

**[BEEP]**

 

ANNA: Mabel _, Mabel_ , you’re alright, you’re alright, thank god you’re alright. [PAUSE, THE SOUND OF ONE SET OF FOOTSTEPS FOLLOWING ANOTHER] Mabel? Mabel, _are_ you alright? Mabel, why won’t you look at me?

MABEL: [UNDER HER BREATH] You said I couldn’t _look_ at her. Nothing else was forbidden, mark that. [LOUDER] I…made a deal.

ANNA: With the king?

MABEL: No, no. With the house. To bring you back. To… To come back with you. I can’t look at you because the king—

ANNA: You’re bleeding.

MABEL: They beat me half to whatever passes for death down here, Anna, of course I was going to be a little…battered. But don’t worry about that right now, now we’ve got to concentrate and get out of here. The king said—

ANNA: Don’t worry about that? How do you know they’re not going to, I don’t know, attack us on our way out? He must not have been pleased to let both of his birds go.

MABEL: They won’t. He made a promise. We’re getting out of here, as long as I don’t—

ANNA: Don’t look at me? Oh.

MABEL: You trust me, right? And I trust you. And I trust that he’ll keep his promises.

ANNA: He has to, doesn’t he? Just like he has to—

MABEL: Answer every challenge. Yes. [LONG PAUSE, SOUNDS OF WALKING]

We must be nearly out by now. We should be nearly out. Does any of this look familiar—

ANNA: Shit, Mabel, don’t turn—

MABEL: My eyes are closed. We should be fine. You’re still here, right? Anna?

ANNA: God, yeah, I’m here. Turn _around_ , Mabel, so you can see where you’re going. We’re close, I think. _Don’t_ do that again, Mabel.

MABEL: As you wish, _Saint_ Anna. Was—was this door here before?

ANNA: I…don’t think it was. That’s a good sign, right? That means we’re back?

MABEL: I, I think so. I—hope so. I think we’re back, Anna, I think we’re—

[THE CREAK OF THE DOOR GLITCHES AND MULTIPLIES, BLENDING INTO THE ROAR OF THE HOUSE]

—home.

 

**[BEEP]**

 

ANNA: Narrative is a cage, isn’t that what you said, Mabel? To the other-me, to Veratrine. You can’t abide it, never have been able to bear bars at all. You’re good at getting through them, too. I haven’t read a story that could keep Mabel Martin from getting just what she wanted.

Kings keep their word, even when men falter. Not one of them under the hill can lie, you said, and I believe you.

What’s next, I wonder? Which fairytale will you grind to dust beneath your heel? Is it my turn, Mabel, to be Ariadne? This time will I be Orpheus? I’ll save you, Mabel, again, and again, and again—

**[BEEP]**

 

MABEL: One day, Anna was Orpheus, and she sang, and she sang, and she sang, until he let us go.

And the king said, “Do not look behind. She will be with you.”

And she doubted him but trusted me. He promised, and I said, “Kings cannot lie.”

And Anna, Saint Anna, Anna with the mouth of god said, “Come home with me.”

And we went home.

 

**[BEEP]**

**Author's Note:**

> Becca De LaRosa and Mabel Martin make the _Mabel_ podcast, and Hadestown was written by Anaïs Mitchell and is directed by Rachel Chavkin.
> 
>  
> 
> podfic (hopefully) to follow. eventually.


End file.
